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The Sages ordained that a couple should avoid having relations on the day or night when the woman is likely to get her period. This is out of concern she might start bleeding while they are being intimate.
When a woman's period is not absolutely regular, there are three times the couple should separate. The first is called the haflaga (interval). The couple calculate how many days passed between her last two periods. For example, if they were 33 days apart, the couple count 33 days from the most recent period and separate then. The second time is the beinonit (standard), which is 30 days from the previous period. The third is the ĥodesh (month), meaning the couple chart which day of the Hebrew month she began her last period. They then separate on that day of the next Hebrew month. If the month is “long” (30 days), the ĥodesh time will be the day after the beinonit time. If it is a “short” month (29 days), the times coincide. If her most recent period began at night, the separation times for the upcoming month are at night; if it began by day (which is what happens most of the time), the separation times are by day.
If a woman has a very regular period (meaning her previous three periods all started at the same interval, the standard 30-day interval, or the same day of the month), they do not need to separate at the three times, but only when she expects her period. If a woman usually has a very specific premenstrual symptom (such as a specific type of stomachache or headache) within a few hours of starting her period, they should separate when she experiences it, rather than at set times.
